Headlines

NYT

“Cold, thirst, fear”: How hurricane Sandy overwhelmed a New York nursing home

Promenade’s generator was on the ground floor, which quickly filled with swirling Atlantic brine at high tide on Oct. 29. As waves slammed against the building for hours, patients remained inside in the dark, growing steadily more hungry and cold.

The kitchen had flooded, and the owners had not stocked enough food, staff members say…

Cold, thirst, fear: The situation grew so dire that the next evening, as the vestiges of the storm blew across the peninsula, ambulances arrived, evacuated the nearly 200 patients over several hours and deposited them in emergency shelters in the city…

Some family members are still desperately searching for their loved ones, with no help from Promenade, at 140 Beach 114th Street. These patients now live in various emergency shelters or have landed in cots and beds in hospitals and nursing homes across the region.

I feel so sorry for the patients and families of those in the nursing home. People are in nursing homes because of mental, physical, and old age issues and have to rely on those in the nursing home for care. The nursing home owners knew way way before hand this storm was coming and should have done a tiny bit to deal with those in their care?

IMO, it has nothing to do with who or who did not vote bho, it is the nursing home owners who made the bad choice to not take of those in their care!
L

Obviously, you don’t read the “legacy media.” The Times has had coverage on a daily basis, including this story, which involved the complete failure of the owners of a private nursing home to provide for their patients ahead of the hurricane, necessitating their evacuation the following day to emergency shelters run by the City.

And to those commenters deriving pleasure from the plight of these unfortunate people, your lack of humanity is sickening.

Still, there are questions about the state’s handling of the situation, too. A year ago, when a less-powerful Tropical Storm Irene loomed, [State health commissioner] Dr. Shah ordered many nursing homes in the Rockaways to evacuate. But he declined to do so last week in the face of Hurricane Sandy, even though the nursing homes lay in an evacuation zone.

…

Most of those nursing homes, even those much better prepared than Promenade, suffered crushing damage from the storm, and most have since evacuated their patients.

Here’s a tip: remove the idea that governments are capable of doing good from your ideological makeup. It may not be entirely true, but it’ll save you a lot of dissonance.

I suppose it’s good that the city is running shelters, at least. That’s one thing New York City is good at, no matter how many hundreds of millions of dollars they waste on time servers, “cultural” expenses, and public health each year – a fraction of which could have built, you know, a sea wall or other flood control system. Which might be a good idea given that they’re a megalopolis perched on the Atlantic Ocean with a minimum elevation of 0.

Dr. Shah said he gave the homes the option of not evacuating, based on the risks of moving the elderly and the frail. Also, nursing homes complained bitterly about the cost of evacuations last year.

Given that this is the first time NY has been hit like this and the billions (not millions) a flood control system would cost, it is no wonder that such measures haven’t been taken in the past. I assume they will explore their options now and finally get back some of the Federal tax dollars they have been paying all of these years.

Obviously, you don’t read the “legacy media.” The Times has had coverage on a daily basis, including this story, which involved the complete failure of the owners of a private nursing home to provide for their patients ahead of the hurricane, necessitating their evacuation the following day to emergency shelters run by the City.

And to those commenters deriving pleasure from the plight of these unfortunate people, your lack of humanity is sickening.

cam2 on November 10, 2012 at 5:41 PM

Bullsh-t. I was on the ground all week in NYC covering the aftermath of the hurricane. The media was nowhere to be seen in the harder hit areas like Far Rockaway. On election day I saw two videographers from Reuters casually milling about, and one Fox film crew that did a 30 second shot from St. Frances De Sal. That was it. FEMA and the Red Cross have still not been out to the poor areas after 12 days without power, heat and basic necessities for survival. All the nice areas with the rich houses are getting the free Dunkin Donuts truck and the nice Allstate tent for owners to file claims. In Far Rockaway the only thing they have are a bunch of randy occupiers who pulled together to distribute the very few resources the community has. They have received almost 0 outside help, at least until the military showed up two or three days ago. I can tell you from first-hand experience that the media is purposefully not covering this. People are pissed at Bloomberg for actually diverting resources they needed, like generators, to his stupid marathon while they went cold. Oh, and your nursing homes you blame? They were told NOT to evacuate by city officials.

I was embedded with some of the soldiers who eventually went to evacuate the residents. The whole recovery out there is one giant cluster. people are hungry, cold, and suffering, and no one is reporting it. Why? The media is partially complicit. Every single person I talked to, EVERY one, cited the media hype over hurricane Irene, and how it ended up being a complete dud. So when hurricane came this time around everyone thought it was the media being the media again. Even Bloomberg said it wasn’t going to be that bad this time. The only way the media whatever report this as if they could blame it on the right person. With Bloomberg and Obama, thats not going to happen.

You think federal tax dollars actually go somewhere? Wait, let me guess: to “red states,” right? Well, they take the scenic route, and they go to pay people off to get politicians elected – specifically, the kind of politicians New Yorkers like. That’s not accounting, of course, for the fact that SS/Medicare takes up nearly all of the actual tax revenue. We borrow the rest. Maybe we can put in for a New York seawall on the credit card.

Of course, given that New York has a budget over $60 billion and the state’s budget is more than twice that, they might find it more expedient to embrace federalism and build the thing themselves. Hmmm, on second thought:

I live in upstate New York and read the Times daily. They have covered the story every day, typically several stories about different areas of the City and/or New Jersey. I don’t watch TV news, so can’t speak to that, but I was responding to a comment about “legacy media” coverage, which I don’t take to include any TV channel.

Good for you. I walked around all week in sand, mud, trash, and sewage and saw it with my own two eyes and captured it with my camera, and interviewed the locals with my recorder. Considering the whole place is only a couple blocks wide, I’d know if there were other media out there besides me. But hey, if you dont want to take my word for it.

And to those commenters deriving pleasure from the plight of these unfortunate people, your lack of humanity is sickening.

cam2

Thank God for that hurricane last week.

Chris Matthews

Meanwhile, Chris Christie was out either yesterday or today proclaiming that the situation in the North East is now their Katrina, and he wants the same recognition that those in New Orleans received. Yeah, you’re a little too late there fat man. Maybe you should give Obama a call and tell him you’ll let him stick it all the way in this time.